The Salt Lake County Summer Corporate Games

The Salt Lake County Summer Corporate Games is going on right now. Saturday was the fishing event where we would compete against 20 other teams at Jordanelle Reservoir. The competition is based on the weight of the largest 8 fish caught per team of four fishermen.

The day started out at 3:45 AM. By the time I got dressed, everything loaded into the truck and got the boat hooked up it was 4:40 and time to go pick up Geremy. He was ready to go when I got there and we were on the road by 5:00. At the Jordanelle guard shack we put in our 10 dollar fee and then met up with Milton and Jordan at the check in table by 6:00. After filling out the tournament registration forms, showing our badges and team shirts we got notice we could begin fishing.

We had discussed previously our options. Last year we had the best luck by the dam. We also heard reports that the water across from the marina was good for big browns and that bass fishing was good near the bushes by the Marina. Jordan had heard that the inlet was key for trout. Checking with Fish Tech, they said they had the best luck for both trout and bass at the inlet. I had fished the inlet a couple of times this year previously and had good luck with trout there. Talking with Hal, he had caught 5 bass that week around the weeds near the Marina. All in all it looked like the inlet would be our best bet.

It was time to commence our strategy. We would drive around to the Provo River Arm of Jordanelle by the Rock Cliff area and launch our boats at that ramp, rather than at the Marina. This was a 20 minute drive but was quicker than launching at the marina and having to motor all the way across the reservoir and up the long Provo River Arm.

Jordan and Milton caught the first few fish using shrimp. Geremy and I used lures, hoping to catch some trout. We also tried curly tails and tube jigs on various types of rigs and ended up catching quite a few bass on these. We would find the current from the river and drift along it. When we drifted too far or it got too shallow we would move to were we wanted to fish and drift again. There were a couple of deeper channels that we also would drift along.

This strategy seemed to pay off. Between the four of us, we caught 3 trout and 8 bass. The smallest trout and the two smallest bass we didn’t include in the tally. We combined the 8 fish into a bag and drove back to the marina. By this time there was a line of cars at the guard shack so Milton took off running toward the marina with the bag of fish in case it took us too long to get through the line. Weigh in time was 11:00 AM sharp.

The total weight for the catch of our team was 7 lbs 6 oz. This was 5lbs heavier than the closest competitor. This won the Gold Medal for ARUP Laboratories again.